Hey, it's me with yet another chapter ^-^

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Back in the Cove I spent a few hours of rigorous practice with my new weapon. It's weight and uncommon shape would take a while to get used to, but I was confident that I'd manage to master it eventually. When I finally called it a day, I was thoroughly drenched and decided to take a quick bath in the pond. Voltage didn't join me for two reasons. First of all water is the one and only weakness of a Skrill, because it can't channel electricity, thus losing all its firepower while its wet. The other, not quite as obvious reason, being eels. That's right, the bloodthirsty, relentless monsters that Bork the Bold describes in his Book of Dragons, are afraid of eels.

'More like Bork the Dork,' I thought, chuckling at this little rhyme of mine. (Note: That makes 2!)

After my bath I spread my clothes close to the fire to dry them and rummaged in one of Voltage's saddlebags until I found what I had been looking for. A very old, worn down copy of the Book of Dragons. This copy, however, was by no means a normal one. It had belonged to my mother and she had rewritten most of the entries. As the first human ever, she had recognized the dragon's true nature, trying her best to preserve that knowledge for generations to come. And I had inherited her will. I gently replaced the book into which I had scribbled countless observations of my own. True, my mother Valka Haddock had been the only person worth calling dragon master, but I had spent many years with her as my mentor. Ending the war between humans and dragons had been her goal, her final wish, and now it was mine. But my heart wasn't ready to fight for peace, not just yet. I just couldn't forgive Stoick for all that had happened. He'd abandoned my mother, abandoned me, happily living his life as the chief of Berk. All that while slaying hundreds or thousands of dragons. And then there was his son, my brother, Hiccup. He either didn't know or didn't care what had happened, but he certainly was as much at fault as our father.

"I'll make them pay. Stoick will die, but I may content myself with banishing Hiccup. And then I will change everyone's view of dragons and put an end to this war." I murmured, gazing into the flickering flames.

...

At the same time on the other side of Berk

...

"Stoick! Chief Stoick!" shouted Bucket, clearly beside himself with fear. "Something terrible happened!"

The chief of the Hairy Hooligan tribe sighed deeply. He was sitting on his throne in the great hall, flanked by his closest advisers, Gobber the Belch, Berk's one and only blacksmith, and Spitelout Jorgenson, his second in command. None of those three seemed very eager to hear about this so-called terrible thing that had happened.

"So what is it this time, Bucket? Did you use one of our sheep as bait again? Or maybe you set your boat on fire?" Stoick asked, clearly irritated by his clansman's sudden intrusion.

"No! Probably not that is. Unless... I forgot."

"Alright, so what is this terrible thing that happened? I can't wait to hear about it." Spitelout asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Apparently Bucket didn't notice.

"It's really terrible, that thing. We caught a fish tha-"

"A FISH!?" Stoick boomed. "By Thor, Bucket! You are a fisherman and you barge in here and interrupt our meeting because you caught a fish!?"

"B-But it's not a normal fish."

"Oh I'm sure it's a very special fish, Bucket and I will certainly have a look at it later."

"That's good. It said it wanted to talk to you," Mulch said, as if that was the most normal thing to say, and turned to go.

"Now just wait a minute, Bucket. Fish can't speak."

"That's why I said it's not a normal one."

Stoick sighed again while getting up.

"Let's postpone this meeting for now and go check on the poor devil that got caught in a fishing net."

As it turned out, the poor devil was Trader Johann. Drenched and madly trashing around inside a big fishing net, cursing like a sailor.

"By Odin's beard, Johann. How did you end up in that net? And where's your boat?" Gobber asked, hardly trying to mask his amusement.

"Just get me out of here already!" Johann screamed.

Stoick took out his knife, that carried his seal on the hilt, and began cutting the meshes.

The unfortunate merchant fell onto the jetty with a wet thud and wrung out his hat while getting up.

He refused to talk and it took a set of dry clothes, a crackling fire and a warm meal to change his mind. Eventually Stoick grew tired of waiting and fixed his gaze onto the merchant.

"Now, Johann, are you ready to tell us your story?"

"Not quite," he replied, holding up his tankard "Refill."

When he noticed Stoick's expression he hurriedly added "What I have to tell you is of utmost importance. You might wanna send for Hiccup."

That got him the chief's attention. "Hiccup? Don't tell me he somehow sunk your ship with one of his weird inventions. That boy, I swear. I'm at my wit's end."

"No, no, no, no. Nothing of the sort," Johann assured. "But he should be present for my story, trust me," he continued, emptying his third tankard.

...

Hiccup's POV

...

"This should do," I muttered, while giving my automated catapult the finishing touch. "With this I'll definitely manage to kill my very first dragon. And then I, Hiccup, formerly referred to as Screw-up, will be respected by my father, the whole tribe and..." My gaze wandered through the forge's window and fixed on a young, blonde viking girl. "...Astrid," I sighed. She turned around, noticing the look on my face. I couldn't believe my ears when she said "Come close". Then again, maybe she had actually said "Gross". I was about to leisurely walk up to her to show her my cool new invention when Gobber suddenly appeared in front of me.

"A-Ah, Gobber, I was just trying to..."

The blacksmith grinned, briefly looking at Astrid. "Get a bloody nose, eh?"

"Oh she wouldn't do that. Again..." I muttered.

"Didn't I tell you time and time again what you're lacking?"

"You did. And so did father, Snotlout, the twins, ..."

"Right," he interjected "we don't exactly have time for the whole list. Your father wants to see you in the great hall."

"Alright, tell him I'll just finish up on someth-" I said, heading back towards the forge.

"No can do," Gobber replied and grabbed me by the collar.

"Stop it, Gobber! I can walk on my own! I have two perfectly healthy legs!"

He didn't listen and all I could do was to cross my arms and frown while he dragged me along behind him.

The last thing I saw of Astrid was her laughing at me. 'At least I made her laugh... one way or another.' Positive negativity, my trademark.

During my involuntary journey through the village, that was accompanied by laughter wherever we went, I tried to make sense of this sudden summon. Not that being suddenly summoned by my father was a rare occasion. These meetings followed a certain pattern I'd come to hate.

"Son, we need to talk," he would say, "It's time to teach you another important lesson. If you want to become a good chief, you need to...", followed by a sheer tirade of a chief's Do's and Don'ts.

By now I had already memorized most of it, but trust me, that's a list you really don't wanna hear.

When we finally arrived I had been thoroughly ridiculed and Gobber decided to let me go.

"Thanks a lot, you brute. I'll remember this," I grunted brushing off some of the dust from my legs.

"I'm sure you will, lad," he replied and gave me a gentle push that almost sent me flying through the entrance of the great hall. I desperately tried to keep my balance before sprawling onto the ground.

'Another grand entrance, Screw-up,' I thought and sighed. "You called, father?"

That's it! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you did (and even if you didn't) please feel free to review and tell me what you liked and/or disliked. It helps a lot and is greatly appreciated. Your feedback is the best motivation and I'm truly happy about every single of your reviews, favs and follows ^-^

Thanks a lot!

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